Router blow out, what happened?

For months now I have been setting up a shop and looking forward to building something nice for our house, so I thought that a simple picture frame would be a good warm up project to get me comfortable with my new tools and shop. The first mortace and tenons went well and I learned a lot, every thing was going fine until it was time to route the 3/8” rabit for the glass, the oak totally shattered and turned my frame into firewood, and now my router won’t power up, I checked the safety, power cord and adjustments, it did power up for a second and then died out, what went wrong?

I used a router table with a Ryobi 2hp, 1/2” shank and a ball berring 1/2” rabit bit from Rockler. The wood is old oak floor boards with the tong and groove cut off and then every side jointed.

Do I need to use a speed control, I have one but have not installed it yet.

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9 comments so far

Hummm…I’m going to guess two different things are going on. Oak is really bad for splintering so I make the majority of my cutting going backwards. Oak can really splinter bad. Sometimes not making a full cut helps too. The router sounds like it has a short in the cord or switch.

I’m no pro, but one area that caught my eye was the grain of the oak. The “blowout” area looks like it was knotted, which would leave it susceptible to such a tragedy, based on the direction of travel your router must take for the rabbit. I might get corrected here, but I’m thinking…had the rail been turned over, the knot would have been on the other end and the router would have been cutting with the knot instead of against it. That probably would have prevented this from happening.

As for the router, I am not mechanically inclined. Would suspect the sudden “catch and jerk” from hitting the knot did something internally.

-- Randy, Tupelo, MS ~ A man who honors his wife will have children who honor their father.

You caught the grain at the edge and blew out the chunk. Sometimes we need to do what is called a “climb cut” in order to safely start the edge. (you move the wood in the direction of the spinning bit) but you have to maintain your hold with push pads so the wood doesn’t get away from you. Or make incremental cuts to build the depth. Look at the direction of the grain in relation with the direction the bit spins and you’ll see it.As far as your router, does it have trip switch attached at the table? Usually the router plugs in to the table at the switch. I hope this helps.

-- so much wood, so little time. Bradford. Wood-a-holics unanimous president

Dennis is right about not making a full depth cut in oak. It will splinter.

If the router was mounted in a table (bottom facing up)- could one of the splinters have gotten down into the armature and jamming it. This might cause it to thermal overload and shut down until it cools off.

Hi Guys, thanks for the information, Ya I did hit a knot and I went in for a full cut, I was excited and not thinking, and then felt sick, oh well back to the shop, by the way I found a bunch more oak floor board cut offs and a ton of what must be maple in the attic today, leftovers from the last owner of our house, YA-Hoo more wood to work with and it’s free. As for the router I pulled it out from the table let it cool, blew it out with air and the thing wont turn on, the shaft will spin and lock ok, just no power. Oh well looks like I need to get my electrical skills going on this one.

When I get a blow out like this one, it is from taking too deep of a cut. I prefer to make a lighter cut and get to final depth through several passes rather than attempting to climb cut an entire frame.

With regards to power, did you check your breaker box? A sudden surge can overload the circuit and flip the breaker. I run my power tools through a surge protector and it takes the hit rather than the breaker.

When I get a blow out like this one, it is from taking too deep of a cut. I prefer to make a lighter cut and get to final depth through several passes rather than attempting to climb cut an entire frame.

With regards to power, did you check your breaker box? A sudden surge can overload the circuit and flip the breaker. I run my power tools through a surge protector and it takes the hit rather than the breaker.

Router FIX, I just repaired the router and will post details and photos on how it is done later, but to make a long story short the power wire to the safety / shaft lock switch came off, I put it back on and reassembled the router and didn’t have any extra parts left over :)